IRS Plans to phase in Congressional Mandate for Electronic Filing: In prepared comments at a recent presentation, David Williams, IRS director of electronic tax administration and refundable credits was quoted as stating that the IRS has decided to phase in the mandate over two years. "Next year, preparers who reasonably expect to file 100 or more returns will be subject to the mandate and then we'll lower that mandate to 11 in 2012”, said Williams. Proposed Regulations are anticipated to be released shortly and we will keep you informed of these new rules.
The latest news on the estate and gift tax is there is no news, only discussions and rumors. The facts are that Congress has so far this year failed to pass legislation that would reinstate the estate and gift tax nor give guidance to practitioners or taxpayers on the rules for 2010, nor have they addressed the issue of providing guidance for the law in effect that replaces the step up in basis rules with carryover basis rules for one year. Discussions on what to do about the estate tax continue to be blocked for reasons that are both political and substantive. The AICPA has repeatedly asked Congress to act immediately on the Federal Estate and Gift Tax pointing out the difficulties of the current situation. We have also pointed out to the officials at the Internal Revenue Service in our IRS business plan comments, the urgent need for guidance on carryover basis now. We will continue to shine light on this situation.
On May 28th, the House of Representatives voted on a package of extensions for many expiring provisions to be paid for with significant revenue raising provisions. The Senate was unable to come to an agreement on a proposal and appears to not to be willing to accept the proposal that was voted on by the House. The Senate leadership is hoping to consider a bill the week of June 14 but significant disagreements remain. To become law identical legislation must be approved in both the House and Senate before it goes to the President for his signature and it becomes law. Bottom line, we are a ways off from final action on any of these expiring provisions.